Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday September 14, 2012 @07:48AM
from the that-will-go-over-well dept.

girlmad tips this news from the Inquirer:
"Intel's Clover Trail Atom processor can be seen in various non-descript laptops around IDF and the firm provided a lot of architectural details on the chip, confirming details such as dual-core and a number of power states. However Intel said Clover Trail 'is a Windows 8 chip' and that 'the chip cannot run Linux.' While Intel's claim that Clover Trail won't run Linux is not quite true — after all, it is an x86 instruction set, so there is no major reason why the Linux kernel and userland will not run — given that the firm will not support it, device makers are unlikely to produce Linux Clover Trail devices for their own support reasons."

I am sure you didn't mean any disrespect, but the whole "Linux always finds a way to work" irks me. Linux doesn't fine a way, some extremely talented and hard working individuals spend vast amounts of their time building/designing/testing code to support hardware. It's not magical.

Again, I am sure you didn't mean anything negative by your comment, but I have seen this perspective become pervasive an I'd like it stop.

In Vernor Vinge "A fire upon the Deep [amazon.com]", humans are marooned in orbit around a low-tech civilization and do what they can to bootstrap a starfaring civilization there. As soon as the first computers are invented, they start sending pseudonymous messages and create and contribute to software projects to speed things up, acting like they are 'groups of students' (like Bourbaki) or anonymous contributors... How would we even know if half the contributors to Linux didn't even exist in real life ? Come to think o

Linux doesn't find anything. Linux developers find a way of they devote the time and energy.
He may have been accurate as far as he meant to be interpreted as of now, no release of Linux works on it. According to another Slashdot article we just saw, you could run Linux on a pack of Magic: The Gathering cards.

To be pedantic, most processors are designed to run an OS, in that they have features that are specifically required for the way operating systems are implemented. Support for things like privilege levels for example.

Normaly, one of the first things a processor designer does after defining an architecture is porting gcc to it (AKA adds Linux support).

No, "making GCC generate code for a given processor" is not also known as "adding support to Linux for that processor"; for example, making GCC generate code for a given processor does not magically add processor-specific support code, such as code to support the processor's MMU, to the Linux kernel for that processor.

I can't see what possible benefit it is to Intel to deliberately limit the market for their processors. Unless they are doing this for Microsoft's benefit, in which case, surely, there are anti-trust implications?

It's not illegal for Intel to be idiots and partner with MS given their history with partners but neither player has a monopoly in this market. Intel has a right not to support Linux, but again, they are being short-sighted.

Does MS have a monopoly on tablet OS? No. An emphatic no. Why can't MS (or anyone) enter in agreements with other companies especially since they clearly do not have a monopoly? This decision by Intel means that Intel won't support Linux on these processors. It's their idiocy. Apple doesn't support Linux/Android on their iPads or iPhones either. Nokia doesn't support Linux/Android on their Lumia phones either. Are you asking for anti-trust in these cases? If the answer is no, then don't you have a

calling them tablets and smartphones instead of computers is the biggest ruse in recent computer history... why didn't ms think of it in '90s? they should have started calling their operating system a system runner.

could simply be to let MS get a time lead over linux. that could be all it is.

maybe it takes 6mos to get linux kernel, devices and i/o working. that's a full 6mos that MS can brag and sell their new hot hardware and get at least some people to buy that might not otherwise do so.

maybe its 3mos. who knows. but its a time lead. and that, alone, could be enough for MS to be happy.

if you are ok waiting a bit, linux does seem to get people to port this and that and eventually enough stuff works that its now

No, It's just another case of Intel trying to steer the market in a certain (advantageous to Intel) direction. And the "cannot run" is a red herring, the real issue is "will not support"; and it's not so much "Linux" as "Android" that'll be lacking that support.

Two reasons:
1. If Intel can use this processor to reestablish the Windows-Intel monopoly, then it will be a great move for Intel. This may be an attempt for Intel to throw a bone to Microsoft.
2. These processors might be very competitive in terms of processing power / watt. Intel may want to protect their Xeon server processor revenues. A Beosulf cluster of these processors may have a formidable amount of processing power.

The expression "won't work with Linux" can usually be translated as "don't know if it works with Linux and we would not support it if we did".

I first met it with OS/2 rather than Linux when I was using internet banking in its early days. I rang the bank Help Desk (about a technical matter not a financial one) and it came out that I was on OS/2. "But Sir" they said "it doesn't run on OS/2, you have to use Windows!".... "But it is running in front of me now" I said.

So, as an aside, isn't the entire point of a tech aggregator to provide a technical summary? Not just copy and paste the article's summary... anyway...

FTFA:

Intel went to great lengths to highlight the new P-states and C-states in which it can completely shut down the clock of a core. The firm said the operating system needs to provide "hints" to the processor in order to make use of power states and it seems likely that such hints are presently not provided by the Linux kernel in order to properly make use of Clover Trail.

In other words, Intel has added new capabilities to Clover Trail that allow enhanced power management, and Linux doesn't currently support it. Anyone who thinks that this will continue to be the case for much longer is a moron, especially if Intel continues to release its architecture datasheets, which we have no reason to think that they won't.

The article really says: It can't run Linux because there's no support for it in Linux, and there's no support for it because it's literally brand-new.

Pretty small:-) but after this decision the market share for x86-compatible Android tablets will be the same in 2013. What I said to be huge is the total Android market. Almost no share of the pie for Intel. If they're doing it they're convinced that it can be good for them but I bet ARM&Co are happy too.

They stated this is a windows 8 only chip. So they won't release specs for other operating systems to use this. Also since windows 8 'require's' the uefi secure boot option, how much do you want to bet intel made Clover trail boards 'won't' support either disabling it nor adding your own keys?

This won't stop linux dev's. Saying something can't work is a challenge to some of them. it's just intel won't provide patches for the in kernal systems to get it running, they might even go as far as to stop such patches being added if they actually 'did' make an agreement with microsoft to make this a 'windows 8 only' chip.

This definitely has something to do with Microsoft. Remember all those Netbooks running Linux? They would n't want that happening again, especially now that Microsoft want to be like Apple in the table space. Maybe the WinTel allience is n't dead afterall.

In that case, the article summary was currect. Yeah, Clover Trail is an x86 CPU, but it has certain new power management states that have to be software driven, presumably w/ new instructions. Since Linux currently doesn't make use of them (I'm assuming that Intel worked w/ MS to ensure that Windows 8 does), if a vendor puts Linux on top of it w/o customizing it for this CPU, then it won't take advantage of the power management techniques. As a result, such a tablet will gouge more power than it would running Windows 8, and that's why Intel currently doesn't want to support it.

Once the next version of the Linux kernel - be it 3.5 or 3.6 - adds support for the Clover Trail instructions in its power management schemes, this CPU too will support Linux. The other possibility - Intel may be waiting for Android or Tizen to support this platform before it confirms that this CPU can run Linux.

In other words, Intel has added new capabilities to Clover Trail that allow enhanced power management, and Linux doesn't currently support it. Anyone who thinks that this will continue to be the case for much longer is a moron

Oddly, Linux still doesn't seem to have proper power management support for my Athlon 64 L110 processor (mobile, 1.2GHz) which is now very fucking old.

Exactly. In my (relatively limited) experience, Intel's wireless chipsets work much better with Linux than other manufacturer's, and though I could be wrong, I'm pretty sure it's because they actually develop their Linux drivers alongside their Windows drivers. If they changed this policy, then I seriously fret for the state of wireless support in Linux. I, too, sincerely hope it's someone's fuckup.

Not only that, Intel actually originally developed Meego b'cos Windows 7 did not support the Atom. Now of course, it's Tizen.

I think that seeing Microsoft porting Windows 8 to ARM, they decided to come out w/ a CPU that rivals it in power management, and got Microsoft to support this. They may be targeting their initial production of this CPU @ Windows RT tablets & phones, in which case, Linux may be on the backburner. Once the Linux kernel supports it, then they can make it one of the target platfo

Computer, especially smartphone and tablet are now a cash cow business. The happy few that have the biggest money will do anything to stop the flow of money to them. All of us will have a single choice: to pay them no matter what. Look like how the giant petrol companies are doing business.

Provided the linux kernel is used in android and that intel tries so much to enter the android market, I highly doubt that their new power efficient chip wont work with linux. It would mean they won't ship it in android as well.

Is there any source for this statement besides The Inquirer? They're basically a tech tabloid and have gotten a lot of things wrong (or overly sensationalized) in the past. I checked Anandtech and Tom's Hardware, both of which covered Intel's presentations this week. No mention of this. I did a Google search for "clover trail" "Windows 8 chip" and found ONLY the Inquirer article and other articles and blog posts directly quoting and linking to it. No reliable third-party tech sites saying the same thing.

This doesn't make sense in terms of Intel's overall philosophy. They have always been good about Linux support for nearly everything else – they don't want to get themselves tied in too closely with Microsoft, for fear that this would reduce their leverage.

I think this story is bullshit. A generous interpretation would be that the reporter heard that the chip ran Windows 8 and that Linux *currently* did not have the necessary support for the "new P-states and C-states" in Clover Trail, and misinterpreted that as saying that only Windows 8 will ever be officially supported. A less generous interpretation is that the Inquirer knowingly made up this crap to get more page hits. In any case, I expect Intel to make their actual position clear soon enough, now that this story seems to have gone viral.

I did a Google search for "clover trail" "Windows 8 chip" and found ONLY the Inquirer article and other articles and blog posts directly quoting and linking to it.

I did a Google search for

"clover trail" linux site:intel.com

and found a press release from June 2012 [intel.com] that said "The company has 20 design wins based on the forthcoming 32nm Intel® Atom SoC, codenamed “Clover Trail,” and designed for Microsoft* Windows* 8."

"Designed for Microsoft Windows 8" could mean anything from "we designed it to be incapable of running anything other than Windows 8" to "our design target was Windows 8 tablets but if it runs other OSes that'd be just fine with us (but maybe that's unlikely because, for example, Android for tablets is mainly being used on ARM so maybe no manufacturer will care about using it to run anything else)" to "we designed it so that it would run Windows 8 better than earlier designs".

Interestingly, the Ars Technical piece in question doesn't directly quote anybody from Intel saying Clover Trail “cannot run Linux”, they just say that the Inquirer reported that an Intel spokesperson at the Intel Developer Forum made that statement. What the Ars Technica piece reports from IDF is

On September 11, Intel Architecture Group Executive Vice President David Perlmutter told IDF attendees in his keynote that the Clover Trail system-on-a-chip architecture was designed specifically for Windows 8 tablets and “convertibles.” In effect, Clover Trail is Intel’s effort to provide a full Windows 8 experience (including enterprise features missing from Windows RT) on devices competitive with ARM-based Windows 8 tablets.

To achieve that, Intel worked closely with Microsoft to instrument the chip to allow Windows 8 to control Clover Trail's advanced power management features, which support what Perlmutter called "always-on" functionality. It's that special sauce in Clover Trail that won't be supported for other operating systems, including Linux, likely in part because of Intel’s desire to keep those features close to the vest—and because of contractual obligations to Microsoft.

so maybe 1) you can't run on Clover Trail without using the advanced power management features and 2) the documentation of those features won't be public (Intel have had documented-but-not-publicly-documented hardware features in the past), in which case Clover Trail won't be able to run Linux unless and until the features in question are reverse-engineered (and maybe there are Intel and/or Microsoft patents on those features to get in the way of doing that).

Or maybe not. Perhaps, for example, the features aren't required, but Linux-on-Clover-Trail will run the battery down faster if it doesn't use them.

Dead wrong. Intel drivers are excellent and I and many others have had great success with them. They also usually work quite closely with the kernel community as a whole to make sure things work as expected; that's why what this article is saying seems to out of character for Intel. For instance, try searching for "intel.com" [kernel.org] in the git commit log. Lots of kernel developers are on Intel's payroll, including core people like Alan Cox [wikipedia.org].

I think this mostly due to the PowerVR SGX graphics engine (remember the gma500 poulsbo). for the gma500 intel made a binary linux driver that did not impress anyone. I guess for clovertrail they are just not bothering with releasing a binary driver.

So it might work fine as a CPU, but have no graphics acceleration. however for a tablet chip that cannot play video or composite a desktop in software, it might be effectively useless.

Doubt it. They can choose to support or not support whatever they want. They just can't actively use their current monopoly position to harm competition in another market (operating systems). If they put in some special instructions that actively sabotage the Linux kernel from running, that would be one thing. From what it sounds like though, they are merely not providing drivers/source code for Linux for some of the CPU features for this platform. Of course since a lot of geeks will try to get Linux running on a toaster for the lulz, I expect this to only be a short-term hindrance.

IANAL, but I recall that Microsoft got in a bit of trouble because early versions of Windows were designed NOT to run on top of Digital Research DOS. Not going out of your way to support something is one thing, being exclusionary and abusing a monopoly position is another

They never actually did it, and they never got into trouble for considering it either.

There was a beta of one version of Windows 3.x that put up a message along the lines of "This software is unreliable and unstable and will EAT YOUR BABY if you run it over DR-DOS" (well, words to that effect.) IIRC it was only in the beta, the version that was sold would run on everything.

Interesting perspective, but Microsoft obviously did something bad enough to compel them to pay Caldera at least 155 million (http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/news2/microsoft-settles-dr-dos-antitrust-lawsuit) . Something tells me if this was just a blip in a beta, they'd take it to court.

Well, I never thought I'd be standing up for Microsoft, at least a little, But IMHO they had at least a LITTLE justification for putting up the warning message. Old Windows HAD to make MANY patches into the DOS resident code, and it depended on MANY undocumented data areas inside the DOS resident code. Any DOS clone, if it was to have a chance of running Windows, had to be very carefully engineered to match all those undocumented locations in DOS. The odds of Digital Research being able to guess all the exact locations that Windows depends on, and will depend on, is somewhat slight.

"The firm said the operating system needs to provide "hints" to the processor in order to make use of power states and it seems likely that such hints are presently not provided by the Linux kernel in order to properly make use of Clover Trail."

Your comprehension must not be up to par, sir. Anyone should know I'm talking about Intel's claim that "This will not run Linux" and "This is a Windows 8 Chip" means linux kernel vs Microsoft kernel.

Somebody's skills aren't up to par; I'd vote for the person who spoke of "a competing kernel" without indicating why Intel would care about two competing kernels when they make neither and have supported both and without bringing up collusion - the only thing that could be at issue here would be collusion between Microsoft and Intel, so I don't think anybody could go after Intel alone on an anti-trust issue, they'd have to go after both Intel and Microsoft.

...into the Appelsk walled garden that Windows 8 appears to be heralding in (Windows Store only apps, "for your own security, comfort and ease of use", coming to you in Windows 8.5/9). Last thing our walled gardeners want is an alternative OS weed like Linux, working perfectly on the same hardware...

Didn't RTFA. So what's the short version? Does "Can't run Linux" mean that it current'y can't the OS because the kernel needs to be adapted to it? Or, does it mean that this will only execute code signed by Microsoft and that in no way in hell will it run anything else?

You know that this is a processor, right? A processor is something that you use at both phones,tablets, netbooks, notebooks, desktops, workstations and servers. Also, all of those categories are fuzzy, and processors do leak to the neigboring ones.

For the looks of it, this one is a tablet's processor. On tablets, iOS has most of the market, Linux is a minority and Windows does not even mark outside of the error margin, that last OS is the one Intel is going to support. Of course, it will leak to netbooks and notebooks, where Windows rules (but is losing space fast for OS-X).

I have no idea why Intel would even make such a decision, and I doubt AMD, VIA, or ARM management agree with it. From the public info it just doesn't make any sense, there must be something Intel is hidding.

For a comparable example, look at the Raspberry Pi. On one hand, it's a cheap SBC intended to run Linux. But the SoC itself has huge parts without public documentation, and anybody trying to write open drivers for it is going to have a huge challenge ahead. For now, it's "Broadcom's buggy.ko binaries, or nothing at all."

It's probably safe to say that someone will almost certainly find a way to run Linux on this chip. What they probably WON'T be able to do is take advantage of the chip's full capabilities,

actually, parent is correct. There are antitrust issues to be investigated here. This has nothing to do with choosing to support something or not, and is a very bad move by intel. If it were choosing they would say "this processor is not designed for linux" not "this processor will not *work* with linux". Sounds small, but it's of critical importance. The reality is that the antitrust issue is not with Intel - it is with Microsoft.

Why should anyone use the x86 instruction set if they're explicitly saying that things are not compatible? All they're trying to say to people is "please use ARM", which is not the smartest idea. That is entirely different from what intel is implying, which is that the BIOS issues regarding windows 8 preventing other operating systems from running...that issue from before.

There aren't any antitrust issues here. Intel can do whatever it wants with it's processors so long as it doesn't use it's processors (I'm not even sure you could call Intel a monopoly in processors, but that would be for a court to decide) to give another of their products an unfair advantage.

Pretty much the same for Microsoft. Unless you think somehow Microsoft strong armed Intel into it, and can prove it in court. Even then it would be difficult. You would have to prove that Microsoft abused it's monopoly position in OSes to do so in a way that harms consumers. Good luck with that.

Bullshit, Intel is falsely advertising that a chip with all the standard (for today) x86 instructions will not run Linux, which is an x86 compatible kernel, and says that the chip is for Windows 8. Intel is colluding with Microsoft in this instance to create an anticompetitive market.

FALSE ADVERTISING IS STILL ILLEGAL AND AN ANTITRUST ISSUE WHEN A CONVICTED MONOPOLIST IS INVOLVED.

There aren't any antitrust issues here. Intel can do whatever it wants with it's processors so long as it doesn't use it's processors... to give another of their products an unfair advantage.

Not true. The range of Anti-Trust includes oligarchic rings. If Intel purposely altered the chip by examining instructions that Linux calls but Windows 8 Metro doesn't, and "conveniently" removes/alters those instructions, it's anti-trust. It's a variant on collusion. If you have multiple parties of overlapping busines

From what I can tell Intel is creating API calls to these new processors to shutdown cores. These APIs are being provided to MS only. Best case is that Linux on these processors will be less efficient. Worse case is that the processors don't run properly (until it is reverse engineered) in Linux.

Sigh. Why is this one of the first reactions when a manufacturer doesn't do something you want them to do? Seriously, Intel not only does not have a monopoly of tablet processors, I would say they don't even have a majority. ARM processors power the vast majority of tablets. Intel is only hurting themselves by not supporting Linux.

Do you even know what you are talking about or is your only response to levy insults at other people? I would think someone with your low UID would know better.

First of all if you even remotely looked at my posts, you would see I'm no fan of MS. I believe they should have been broken up. Second if you read or understood the case against MS, the government went after MS for PCs not computers in general as they don't have a monopoly on servers, especially Unix/Linux servers. Also having a monopoly is not p

Again, Intel is only hurting themselves. The vast majority of tablets run ARM and not Windows. It's not anti-trust for Intel to make bad strategic decisions in a market that they have very little influence.

if it's a win8 only chip, it quite possibly includes the damn "Trusted Boot" feature that MS wants on all hardware with UEFI. This means that unless the fucking bootloader and OS is blessed by MS, it wont run.

Now if this is only for those Win8 Tablets and such that MS wants to get to market, then the chip may well run Linux or any other OS that's x86 based though w/o the blessings of Intel. Another issue is that Intel May restrict sales of this to OEM's with a minimum of 10k per order. Another possibility i

What color is the sky in your world? They're both Unixlike but that's as far as that goes. Linux is descended from Minix and runs a GNU userland. OSX is descended from NeXTStep which is descended from BSD. They are almost as different and differently-descended as they could be and still be able to run much of the same code without major changes.

Until such time the Linux kernel uses the new power management instructions of Clover Trail to do power management. Otherwise, Android, Tizen and other Linux may work on Clover Trail, but they would be a power hog while running on Clover Trail.